Mitt Romney aide's gaffe exposes rift

In one week abroad, Mitt Romney has managed to enrage both the Brits and the Palestinians. Now add to that roster his own press corps.

Over seven days in the UK, Israel and Poland, Romney held just one media availability for the U.S. traveling press — and even then, standing outside 10 Downing St. in London, he answered only three questions. While he gave a series of interviews to the major television networks, he granted no interviews to other U.S. outlets.

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The snub has become the straw that broke the back of an already bitter press corps, long frustrated by limited access to the Republican candidate on the campaign trail. And those frustrations, which traveling reporters are voicing loud and clear online, are putting unprecedented pressure on the Romney campaign’s communications team.

The tensions came to a head in Warsaw today when reporters, increasingly aware that there would be no end-of-tour press avail with the candidate, began shouting questions at Romney as he walked back to his vehicle from a wreath-laying at their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“Kiss my ass; this is a holy site for the Polish people,” shouted Rick Gorka, a traveling press aide who has tussled with reporters before. “Show some respect.”

Gorka then told a reporter to “shove it.” (He would subsequently apologize to some of the reporters, calling his outburst “inappropriate.”)

Members of the traveling press corps now wonder why they went all the way to Jerusalem and Gdansk to watch the candidate tour the monuments and hold meetings behind closed doors.

“So it’s official: Romney is leaving a 7-day foreign trip after answer only 3 Qs from the media,” Ashley Parker of the New York Times tweeted Tuesday morning.

”Romney trip by the numbers: Three foreign countries, and three questions from the traveling press,” Kasie Hunt of The Associated Press tweeted a few minutes later.

“We didn’t need to come all the way over here to handle photo ops,” another member of the press corps told POLITICO. “There is a growing frustration among reporters, a growing sense that the campaign doesn’t get it — we don’t want to screw you, we just want to do our job.”

“Here’s a guy making his audition on the world stage, his trip has been defined by gaffes, and he gives us five minutes and three questions in front of 10 Downing,” said another. “The appetite grows with each gaffe, and the campaign isn’t making it easier on themselves.”

High-profile media personalities have also complained. Last week, NBC News political director Chuck Todd and his co-authors at NBC’s First Read blog lamented Romney’s decision to ignore the U.S. press even as he took questions from members of the UK media.

It is not Mitt the Twit against the media, it is simply Mitt the Twit against himself. He can play the victim card as much as Palin did but in the end, his Embarrass America Tour and Queen Ann’s “you people” comment speak for themselves.

Lovely. The media has to redefine the meaning of the word "gaffe" to match anything coming from the Romney camp. The media is greatly responsible for our perception of partisan politics and an uninformed public. Let Romney define himself. We're sick of pundits and phony journalists molding public perception of candidates.

All most Americans are privy to is the Obama Stenography Pool...............

The free press died in 2008, when the media failed to vet President Poodle Studel, yet sent hundreds of reporters to Alaska so they could attack the Republicans VICE-PRESIDENTIAL candidate...................

Romney can't even handle the press and he thinks he should be President. It's as if he seriously trying to get screw up. The Newsweek cover story about him being a wimp sums him up perfectly. God help us if he winds up in the White House.

Actually the media has demonstrated over and over again that they do want to screw the Romney campaign. Their uncritical acceptance of Obama campaign talking points and their lack of vetting of Obama or attempts to hold him accountable for continuted high unemployment, cronyism with stimulus funds and Fast and Furious will tell you that the media does, indeed, want to screw Romney.

Why should Romney even bother with the US press as they are all Axelrod folks anyway and left leaners. he won't get anywhere except on Fox which he gives interviews at length to.

So the traveling lefty press corp is all up in arms about it? Let them be, the EU papers at least report the news, not ONLY left wing opining.... .like we get in the states. besides Israel loved Romney at that was the point, along with Poland.